Growing and Scaling a Wedding Planning Business Without the Feast and the Famine

It’s mid-April and wedding season cashflow is in the air (for now).

If you’re like most wedding pros, sales are coming in hot and your business is bursting with sales. But let’s fast forward to wintertime and think about how many times you felt the famine. I know I have! 

It took me a long time to figure out how to beat the feast and the famine. Entrepreneurship is hard enough, right? But if you’re in a seasonal industry like ours, growing and scaling your small business can feel even harder. 

The power is in knowing your numbers. Once you master the art of tactful budgeting, you won’t feel stressed month to month wondering where your income will come from.

Instead, you’ll feel empowered to take on more dream clients, team members, and watch your business grow before your eyes!

So what does this kind of budgeting actually look like for a seasonal small business owner like you?

Know Your Monthly Overhead Costs

Knowing your numbers means, dollar for dollar, knowing how much it costs to run your small business.

I LOVE knowing my numbers but that doesn’t mean I love tracking them. Luckily, I’ve got a great business budget template that can map out your monthly and annual budget.

I used to spend a lot of time agonizing over my budget but once I had a template to keep me on track, budgeting actually became fun (who would’ve thought!!).

Now that you’ve got a template to work off of, let’s get every single cost down on paper. Your advertising, monthly subscriptions, and let’s not forget those weekly McDonalds’ runs—or maybe that’s just me!!

Anyways, there is no cost too small.

Even if it’s $1 dollar. Don’t leave it out because those dollars add up over time!

Track every expense because we want to know the average monthly cost of running our business which will help with our next step.

Save Cash During Busy Seasons to Get You Through Slow Seasons

You’ve got your monthly overhead cost? Great!! Let’s move on to the next step which is to know your average revenue during high and low months.

When you know…

• How much it costs to run your business every month
• Your estimated revenue during high and low seasons

Then you can run a projected P&L either through your CRM, Quickbooks, or even pen and paper works just fine. 

For Blush, my wedding planning company, our clients pay in thirds. And every month I run a report to show what’s already on the books without new sales.

This shows me and the team how much money w can project to come in based on second and final payments alone.

With this projection, I know how much I need to save during our busy seasons to spend during those drier months.

Here’s How The Numbers Look Like In Action

On average let’s say, the monthly costs for your small business are $5,000 a month. During busy seasons, your revenue is about $9000/month.

That means you’ve got $4000 to leave in the bank to save for the slow season. 

Now let’s plan our projections.

Next month let’s say you already have $3000 on the books from second and final payments. Now you know you need to put $2000 in new sales on the books OR have $2000 leftover from the busy season to make up for the slow season.

Over the course of the year, look at your high months and see how many months you’re over the $5K mark.

For low months, you can see how many months you’re under the $5K mark.

Average those numbers out to see if you’ll break even by the end of the year!!

Plan for Projections & Stay Within Budget

Most wedding pros don’t do this stuff.

They don’t do the budgeting and they don’t know how much it costs to run their business. So in busy seasons, they overspend by going on vacation or buying a new computer.

But in slow seasons, they’re eating ramen noodles.

So it’s important when you’re making your budget to write down every single expense you can possibly think of. It’s also important to plan for projections like if you do a certain bridal show every year or plan to hire part-time help.

It’s only the feast and the famine if you choose to live in the feast and the famine, friend!!

Take the first step to grow and scale by downloading my business budget template. You’ll feel confident about your numbers so your business can be profitable by the end of every year!